It Is No Small Matter
by QueenOfTheDreamers87
Summary: "Please do not cry, Mary." She was not even slightly angry with him for using her first name, for eschewing propriety and throwing titles out the window. If she wanted, she could slap him for calling her 'Mary,' for touching her without her permission. She could do worse than that. Instead, she wanted to kiss him for it. So she did. *Re-upload, complete* Eustace/Mary


_Winter, 1539_

"And what did you say to her, My Lady?"

"I told her that it was of little matter to me, Your Excellency, for I am a Catholic, and he is a heretic. Let us not forget it. That is no small matter at all."

Mary pursed her lips and folded her hands in her lap, and Ambassador Eustace Chapuys cleared his throat. He looked at her then, with the pale eyes that bored into hers, and said softly,

"I trust that he did not toy with My Lady's heart whilst here at court."

"Not too harshly." Mary's eyes welled a bit, and she willed the tears away angrily, not eager for Eustace to see her emotional about a silly boy who'd come calling from Bavaria. "He did kiss me."

Eustace nodded once, and Mary saw him square his jaw, almost irritably. His eyes flared with an emotion she could not read properly – was it anger or protectiveness or… jealousy?

Duke Philip of Bavaria had courted Mary eagerly, and Eustace had not seemed amused during his time at the Tudor court. The Lutheran royal was young and handsome and charming, but what he had in looks and charisma, he lacked in morality and integrity. That was Eustace's outlook, as far as Mary could gather. After Philip had kissed Mary and then left with not so much as a farewell, Mary could scarcely disagree with Eustace.

Now she was pretending that it was "of little matter," that her heart had not been thrown at the wall and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces as if it had been formed of glass. She often felt as if she had no friends at all, that she was entirely alone in the world. When Philip had arrived at court and begun making Mary feel special and wanted, she suddenly felt reborn into a world of color and warmth. Now he was gone and everything was black and cold again.

Except for Eustace.

He was the light in her darkness, the coming spring in the winter that had become her life. She looked forward to their meetings as she looked forward to… well, nothing else. There was simply nothing to which to compare their reunions. Talking with Eustace Chapuys meant the relief of stress and sadness and grief and anger. It meant laughing when no one was looking or judging her. Mary frequently sent her servants out of the room, every last one of them, when she was talking with Eustace, so that they might have absolute privacy. She did not care what they all thought of that. These meetings were her only chance to release her pent-up emotions and frustrations. This man, her only ally, was the wreckage of a sinking ship to which she clung so desperately for her life.

"He kissed me," Mary admitted again, pensively, "and I quite enjoyed it, and I think that is what makes me most embarrassed of all about him leaving. I let him seize my heart."

She suddenly dissolved then, into a mess of tears, feeling more frustrated than sad. She was abruptly humiliated by her own childishness, and angrily swiped the tears out of her eyes and sniffed them back determinedly.

Poor Eustace just looked incredibly uncomfortable, shifting awkwardly in his seat and biting his bottom lip.

"Princess," he said quietly, "any man in the world who walks away from the opportunity to marry you is a fool. Besides, I very much doubt that that will be the last time in your life that you are kissed."

Mary tried to smile through her tears, grateful for Eustace's sincere kindness. "You are a good and gentle man, Your Excellency," she told him, nodding. "Your gentleness never ceases to comfort me."

"That is all I ever want to do, My Lady. Comfort you." Eustace's eyes reflected the benevolence of his words. His eyes showed something else, too, a sentiment more deeply-seated and burdened.

Mary shivered suddenly, unexpectedly, and she did not know quite why. Perhaps it was the cold of the room. Her eyes flicked to the fire and realized that it was raging. She was properly attired for the winter day in a thick brown velvet gown with red fur-lined silk sleeves. At her waist there was a soft silk sash, and a cream woolen partlet at her neck to keep her warm. She wore a simple French hood with a cream veil atop her head. Thick woolen stockings cloaked her legs and leather shoes bound her feet. Mary ought to feel warm. Instead, she quivered.

No. It was not the cold. It was his eyes. It was the look in Eustace's face when he told her he wished to comfort her. It was almost frightening to see how much he meant it, to see how clearly and desperately he wished to give her solace in this time of personal grief.

"Thank you, Your Excellency," Mary said simply, rising from her chair in front of the Ambassador's fireplace and thinking that perhaps she ought not to have come to his chambers alone today. It was not as though she did not feel safe around him; on the contrary, she felt perhaps too safe around him. It was as though she might get complacent and let herself slide, let herself get too comfortable.

She must not forget herself, Mary thought with a frown. She was the daughter of the king. This man was a commoner. She should not be pouring her heart out to him. She should not be crying in front of him. She should not be sitting alone in a room with him.

She should not be standing so closely to him, Mary realized, as he, too, rose from his chair and took a step toward her. She could smell him – a spicy aroma, a powerful mix of wood and leather and the fresh scent of the earth. It was intoxicating, more so than the strongest wine Mary had ever tasted, and she shut her eyes against the heady feeling of the smell. Her head spun a bit, and she took a shaky step backward.

"Thank you," she said again, her eyes fluttering open and looking into his, "for listening."

He smiled so gently at her then that Mary nearly swooned, gulping hard and feeling quite literally unsteady on her feet.

What was the matter with her? She wanted to strike herself on the head. She'd not even felt this girlish and idiotic around Philip, and he'd been younger and more conventionally handsome than Eustace. He'd said kind things about her and had kissed her on the lips.

But he'd not been there for her, truly been there for her, for the past ten years the way that Eustace Chapuys had been. This man had been her confederate, her confidante, her confessor, and her friend. He had laughed with her during the merry days and had cried with her at her mother's death. He had mourned every misfortune and had propped Mary up in her wretchedness. Never once, not even when it would have benefitted him to do so, had Eustace abandoned Mary. For that she loved him, truly loved him.

Mary gulped, hard, and returned his smile. Hers was shyer than his had been, more reserved and cautious, but it was grateful. She gave him the consideration of a little curtsy and said,

"Good day, Your Excellency. I am appreciative of your hospitality… as always."

He gave her a low bow in return and said in his deep and tender voice, "My Lady Mary, if ever I may provide a listening ear or a reassuring word, you need only summon me, and I am ever your most willing servant."

Mary stared at him before she turned to go for the briefest of moments, realizing that he was not trying to trifle with her, but was being the most genuine, most sincere gentleman in all the world.

It was with great regret, then, that she nodded and turned on her heels to stride from the room. She felt her eyes quickly well up as she crossed Eustace's large room, and by the time she reached the door, she was sniffling. She could not help herself.

Mary put her hand on the door to open it, grateful that there was no one around, but realizing that the second she stepped into the hallway outside Eustace's room, she would be back in the bustle of court and there would be people to see her cry. She paused with her hand on the doorknob to compose herself, taking a shaking breath, and swiped tears out of her eyes.

This time, the tears were not for the loss of Philip so much as they were out of confusion over Eustace. Mary's heart had been ripped out of her chest and Eustace had carefully placed it back inside with his gentle smile and his kind words. The very last thing Mary wanted to do right now was leave this room and go back out into court. Why had she stood up from her chair? It had been because she'd felt some emotion bubbling to the surface with which she was neither comfortable nor familiar. It was not the same sort of infatuation she'd felt for Philip of Bavaria. The feeling she'd experienced looking into Eustace's deep pale eyes had been something far more profound.

Mary swallowed and tried hard to will the tears away for good, knowing that the most intelligent and wisest thing to do at the moment was leave and go back to her own chamber to consider what she was sensing.

"Mary."

There was a touch on her arm; one so gentle and perhaps even expected that Mary neither jumped in surprised nor gasped in shock. Instead, she sighed with a sense of relief that finally, finally he was touching her affectionately, after all of these years of her wondering secretly what that might feel like. She shut her eyes and swallowed hard again, wondering if she had fainted and was dreaming.

His fingers pulled gently on her arm, willing her to turn around and face him, so she did, but her eyes were still shut.

She felt his rough, calloused thumbs brush under her eyes, his coarse fingertips scraping lightly against the thin, tender skin there. In an instant her tears were gone, no longer falling from her eyes and swept away from her cheeks.

Mary shuddered, feeling his thumbs stay gently pressed on her face while his fingers snaked around her French hood to the back of her head.

"Will you please look at me, Princess?" Eustace asked gently, taking a tiny step forward to close the gap between them.

Mary's eyes flickered open, and she met his gaze, feeling as though her knees were going to give out from underneath her. She gave him a weak little smile, and he grinned crookedly back at her.

"Please do not cry, Mary."

She was not even slightly angry with him for using her first name, for eschewing propriety and throwing titles out the window. If she wanted, she could slap him for calling her 'Mary,' for touching her without her permission. She could do worse than that. Instead, she wanted to kiss him for it.

So she did.

She leaned up and touched her lips to his, so gently that she barely ghosted their mouths against one another. It was not intended to be a sexual advance so much as a grateful gesture, but just the feeling of Eustace's lips against hers lit a fire inside Mary's gut. She gasped at the sensation, and when she lowered herself from her toes she stared at Eustace with wide, alarmed eyes.

What had she just done? It could hardly even be called a kiss, the simple touching of lips that had occurred, but it had happened, and she could not take it back. This would change everything. She could never look at him again. He would never speak to her again. Mary clapped her hand over her mouth and searched Eustace's eyes, horrified.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered frantically. "I'm just upset; I'm so sorry, Your Excellency – please don't -"

He silenced her then by leaning down and moving his hands to her shoulders, pulling her nearer him and lowering his mouth to hers. He pressed his lips firmly against hers and released her mouth for just a moment, then very gently urged her mouth open with his tongue.

Mary gasped and squealed a bit into his mouth. Her kisses with Philip had advanced to include their tongues, but she was not expecting this type of forwardness from Eustace. And, yet, she wanted it. She wanted it more badly than she could properly express. Her gasp and squeal of surprise turned into a little moan of desire and encouragement as the tip of Eustace's tongue brushed along her bottom lip and around the entrance of her mouth. She opened her mouth a bit wider, granting him access and urging him in.

Mary found herself smiling unexpectedly, erasing the tears that she'd been crying and instead ushering in a sudden sensation of bliss. What on Earth was happening? Eustace Chapuys? Kissing her? This was very, very different from kissing Duke Philip. He had been courting her. There had been a real possibility of marriage there. This was not a partnership that could ever lead to marriage, so what was Mary doing? Fooling around like a whore? She needed to stop. Right now. Right this instant.

And, yet, she found herself snaking her fingers through Eustace's thick hair and crushing his face against hers, physically begging him to kiss her more deeply. She tilted her head so that their faces were lined up just so and caressed his head with her lithe little fingers, feeling a pleasant tingling coursing through her veins. It was the same warm arousal she'd felt kissing Philip, but this time it was so much more powerful and acute that she was not sure how to control it.

It was so powerful, in fact, that she pulled anxiously away from the kiss and took a stumbling step backward, running into the door as she did. Eustace reached out to take her by the shoulder and keep her from falling, but Mary pulled herself out of his grasp.

"That," she said angrily, "was completely improper, Ambassador Chapuys, and… and… I shall be leaving at once."

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, feeling abruptly unladylike and realizing that it was his saliva she was cleaning from her face. She wanted to cry again, out of shame and confusion, but decided determinedly that she would not. Instead, she scowled at him and reached behind her for the door.

"My Lady, I – I am very, very sorry. I have been a cur, a rogue, and for that I am truly very sorry," Eustace apologized profusely, though of course both he and Mary knew that she had started the whole thing. Mary just nodded, a bit feverishly, and placed her hand on her forehead with anxiety coursing through her eyes.

"Goodbye," she whispered, for she had a feeling she would be neither seeing nor speaking to the Ambassador for quite some time. She opened the door behind her and turned quickly to slip out, trying to gather herself before she stepped out of the shadows into the corridor where she would be visible to passers-by. She could swear she heard Ambassador Chapuys whisper his response behind her as he quietly shut the door,

"Goodbye, my Princess."

* * *

 _"…verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelem Archangelum…"_

Mary struck her chest three times as she prayed the Confiteor, a knot forming in her throat as she realized the depth of the sin she confessed kneeling before her crucifix.

She was alone, as she so often was, in prayer. She clutched a rosary that had belonged to her mother in the right hand that beat upon her breast. The rosary was made of black glass beads, and her mother, Katherine of Aragon, had brought it from Spain when she had first come to England. Mary had just finished praying that rosary when she felt the need to confess. Alas, a formal confession was nearly impossible in her father's Protestant court. So, she professed the Confiteor in Latin and then whispered in English, staring at her golden crucifix,

"My Lord, please forgive me for lusting after Ambassador Chapuys. I know, yes, I know, my Lord God, that he is not a man to pursue. For, my Lord, I know him to be a commoner and beneath my status. But…"

Even as she murmured her confession, Mary realized the horrible nature of what she was saying. She was confessing to kissing a man not good enough for her. What sort of a sin was that?

"But I love him," she said finally, shutting her eyes. She sighed, her breath trembling, and leaned her forehead against her clasped hands, feeling the beads of her mother's rosary against her skin.

It had been two weeks since she had kissed Eustace Chapuys. Two weeks, and she'd not heard from him at all. She'd seen him a few times at large meals in the main hall, but he'd avoided her gaze as if her eyes would turn him to stone. Trying to get a word with him was like playing a childish game of tag.

So, finally, about an hour before she started praying her rosary, Mary had sent a note with one of her servants to him. It was short and to the point.

 _Ambassador Chapuys,_

 _Please come to me at your very earliest convenience (I would request that it be today) for a conversation. I thank you in advance for your time._

 _The Lady Mary_

She wanted to see him for myriad reasons. She wanted to apologize, to tell him she never intended to destroy their cordial relationship. She wanted to look into his eyes and ask him to forgive her as she had just done to God.

Somewhere deep inside of her sinful soul, she wanted to kiss him again and declare her love for him, but she promised herself that she would do no such thing.

"God in Heaven, purify me of my wickedness and cure me of this covetousness," Mary begged, staring pleadingly at the figure in agony on the cross. "I ask Blessed Mary and all the saints to pray for my soul. _In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen._ "

Just as she finished crossing herself, Mary heard a knock on the heavy wooden door behind her, and she suddenly felt her heart sink, full of dread. It was not the feeling she had been expecting. Mary rose achingly from the stone floor, ignoring the creak in her knees as she did.

"My Lady."

"Joan," Mary acknowledged, nodding to the curtsying young woman in the doorway. Joan looked behind her and gestured for someone in the shadows beyond the door to enter; Mary was not surprised to see Eustace Chapuys cautiously step into the room. "You may go, Joan," Mary said rather firmly, and her servant curtsied and closed the door gently behind her.

Eustace bowed, nothing more than a slight obeisance, to Mary and said, "My Lady. You summoned me."

"It was you, Ambassador, who but two weeks ago said that if ever I was in need of comfort I had but to summon you."

Eustace pursed his lips and nodded. "So I did, My Lady."

"You also called me Mary."

"For that I offer my most sincere apologies."

"No," Mary insisted, shaking her head. She sniffed a little and stepped over to the two armchairs facing one another on either side of a small table toward the center of the room. She gestured for Eustace to take one chair, and she moved to pull the other out for herself before he could do it for her. "No," she said again. "You've nothing for which to apologize, Eustace."

It was she who was now tossing about first names casually, and he looked rightly shocked as he took his seat. He sighed deeply and folded his hands on the table. Mary did the same.

"I have missed you," Mary said quietly, once they had both taken their places at the table. Eustace continued to look surprised at her words, and then he seemed to gather himself. Mary was a bit dismayed that he did not return the feeling, that he did not say he had missed her, as well. Then, he spoke.

"Before she fell asleep to be with God, your mother asked me to care for you," Eustace began, licking his lips carefully, "thinking that you would be in need of protection. But do you know what your father, the King, used to say when he would brag on you, dote upon you? They say he would insist, 'This child nevercries.' It was true, Mary. Everyone who knew you then says you were very small, but you were brave, and you never showed any weakness. Even today that is so very true. I have done everything I can do be a loyal and true friend to you, but you do not need me. You do not need anyone. You are the strongest woman, the strongest person, ever I've had the honor of meeting."

Mary felt her eyes well with an emotion she could not readily identify, and she quickly lowered her gaze to avoid looking into Eustace's eyes. A tear dripped and fell from her face, landing on her lap, and she felt Eustace reach across the table and tip her chin up so that she was looking at him.

"Remember, Mary," he whispered, and Mary finished for him, biting back her tears,

"This child never cries." She steeled herself then and swallowed heavily, managing to stem the flow of emotion that had bubbled to the surface at Eustace's words. "You are the gentlest soul on Earth, sir, and for your help and your friendship, I am eternally grateful. I think it foolish of either one of us to deny the friction, the blatantly evident attraction, which exists betwixt us. Neither ought we pretend that we did not act upon those feelings. Whether they are but lust or something else I am not qualified to say."

Eustace chewed thoughtfully upon his lip and raked his fingers through his thick, wavy hair. Mary noticed only now how it was beginning to gray, how he was beginning to age. Eustace Chapuys had been a younger man, thirty-five years old, when the Emperor had sent him to the English court in 1529. Mary remembered when he had come, and she had thought him very handsome indeed. She had been thirteen years old, just beginning to notice boys and men for what they were, and had been infatuated with the striking Imperial Ambassador who was so good to both her and her mother.

Now ten years had passed, and Mary was twenty-three years of age, old enough that she ought to have married and had issue by now. Ambassador Chapuys was forty-five, and he was beginning to wear his age. Gout afflicted his leg, and he walked with a limp. He seemed a bit wearier, and now Mary noticed the graying of his hair. It made her a bit sad to think of him as an aging man with no wife to bring him comfort.

Of course, she could never be that wife. She was a princess, the daughter of a king, and she would be the wife of one, too. About that Mary was determined. Eustace seemed just as determined whenever the subject of Mary's marriage was raised in conversation.

Why was it that men were allowed – indeed, fully expected – to take mistresses, while the woman who followed her heart was derided as a Jezebel? Mary was no whore. She guarded her chastity extremely carefully; she held it to her chest like a precious child. For twenty-three years she had remained a maid untouched by men, until Duke Philip had first kissed her and now Eustace Chapuys. Was she becoming some sort of harlot? Would she devolve into fits of promiscuity and sin?

No. Kissing Eustace Chapuys had been no sin. They were both unmarried. She loved him. In her heart, she knew that she had loved him for ages, perhaps since first she saw him.

"Do you know," she blurted into the awkward stillness of the room, her eyes fixed on the dancing flames in the fireplace, "that I yearned for you even as a girl of thirteen, when you first came here? And I have hungered ever since." She turned her face to Eustace, who looked surprised; his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment in the dim light.

Mary flashed him a little caustic smile, quite as mortified with herself as he seemed to be. She was most discomfited by the shocked look upon his countenance – the fact that he looked to be significantly alarmed by the revelation that Mary had long found him attractive. Mary gulped, hard, and her nervous smile widened a little as her eyes burned. She tried to look understanding. She tried to look appreciative of what kindness he had provided her for the past decade.

"You do not return the sentiment," she postulated confidently. "You find me quite disagreeable, I should think, and I do not blame you in the slightest, sir. I know myself not to be a beauty, and I do think others find me cold and bitter. But it is not for nothing; I languished in misery for many years, and you know this. It has embittered me, and perhaps I now wear the sourness upon my brow."

"No. No, Mary." Eustace leaned anxiously across the little table and seized Mary's hands. She looked down at them with wide eyes, a bit taken aback by his brazenness. Her eyes flicked up and met his, and the expression he wore was, surprisingly, not one of pity, but one of reverence. "You are the most beautiful creature God ever made," he told her, his voice little more than a whisper, his Savoyard accent more evident than ever. "You are more lovely than the sunrise over the mountains. But it is not your face that is the most beautiful thing, Mary. It is your soul. You bear a mighty burden with grace and humility. You are God's most faithful servant, and you walk through life with more elegance than any in this foolish court could hope to attain. This… this makes you beautiful."

Mary bit her lip, thinking once again that he was the kindest person she had ever known. She had known so very few kind people in her life, and Eustace was so much kinder than any other that he stood out like a flower among weeds.

Eustace's thumbs were tracing circles on Mary's palms, and the sensation made her shiver excitedly. She shut her eyes and tipped her head back, involuntarily letting out a low noise from the back of her throat – a tiny moan of desire.

"My God, release me from this hunger," she pleaded desperately, tilting her head forward again and staring at Eustace with fire in her eyes.

"Where God creates hunger, He very often provides nourishment," Eustace told Mary with a lively glint in his gaze. "If you are hungry, there is a feast here for you… a banquet of satisfying affections and… methodical ministrations."

He said his last words with a suspicious degree of teasing, coursing his fingers around Mary's in provocative loops. Mary shuddered and tore her hands away from his, feeling abruptly out of control of herself. She needed to safeguard her chastity vigilantly, needed to ensure that she did not let him have her body. Eustace Chapuys could never truly know her, no matter how badly her skin and blood may have been screaming for it, because he would never be Mary's husband.

At that thought, Mary suddenly lost control of her emotions and flung herself up from the chair, pushing the table angrily away from herself and marching frustratedly over to stand with her hands on her hips in front of the fire. She huffed with irritation and kicked absently at the corner of the woven rug.

A moment later, she felt Eustace's presence behind her, and his voice quietly, so very gently, murmured,

"I'm sorry, My Lady… I should not have let such vile words escape my lips. I have offended you horribly. I shall go."

"No!" Mary whirled around on her heels and exclaimed her protest more vehemently than she intended. Eustace thought it had been his words about feasts and banquets, about affections and ministrations, which had been the source of her anxiety and sudden burst of anger. Mary gathered herself and patted down her hunter green velvet skirts, clearing her throat. Eustace looked at her with a question in his pale eyes. "I… am frustrated," Mary admitted. "We are an unsuited pair, you and I, and so acting on any emotions or… desires… seems particularly ill-advised."

She chewed her lip and wrung her hands, staring at Eustace apologetically, and his cheeks reddened a bit at her words. She had, in essence, just told him that she would not kiss or touch him because he was too low in status for her.

"It would be easier," Eustace said softly, his discomfort clearly printed on his face, "if you did not want me at all, Princess."

"But I do," Mary insisted, and all over again she felt like crying. "I want very little in this world more than I want to kiss you again… more than I want to tell you…"

She stopped short. She mustn't cross that line – mustn't admit to an emotion she could not retract. She wrung her hands again, feeling helpless and lost. In this situation with anyone else, to whom would she turn for advice and counsel? To him – to Eustace Chapuys. But now she couldn't, for her confusion was centered around the two of them. For years, they had been like two heavenly bodies orbiting one another, constant and sure, and now Mary felt that she had been cast off into the abyss and was drifting off with no sense of direction.

Before Mary could calibrate her mind properly, Eustace had stepped nearer to her, closing the gap between them and reaching his fingers very gently for her cheek. His rough fingertips coursed their way over her cheeks as they had two weeks earlier, and Mary shut her eyes against the divine sensation.

"What do you want to tell me, Mary?" Eustace asked, his question coming out in a low rumble that made Mary's heart quake with longing. "What is it that you wish for me to know?"

"That… that I…" Mary tipped her cheek into Eustace's hand, feeling his palm press warmly against her face. She kept her eyes shut, clenching them a bit more tightly and scrunching her brow as she uttered, "I love you very much, Excellency, and I have for years. All I want in this world, all I need in this world to be happy is for you to love me in return."

She was terrified in that instant; terrified of the rejection she was almost certain was coming. She was frightened that Eustace would ask the Emperor to relieve him of his duties and that he would leave the English court forever. She was horrified of the prospect that she would never see him again after this night. Her eyes clenched tightly shut against the room around her, Mary tried to shut out the reality that she had for many years been little more than an unwanted creature.

But then she felt his lips against hers. She felt Eustace kissing her, very gently at first, and then more deeply as she yielded to him. When he began exploring her mouth with his tongue, Mary felt her knees go weak beneath her and actually thought she might fall until Eustace placed his strong hand confidently in the small of her back to support her. He used the hand to pull her closely against him and Mary felt his embroidered doublet press against her velvet bodice and the bare skin at her décolletage. Not quite knowing what to do with her hands, she reached up and entangled them in his wavy hair, holding his head firmly in the kiss.

She could smell him again, the wonderful woodsy, earthy aroma she had been missing for two weeks. Mary moaned wantonly into Eustace's mouth, knowing that she ought not to be doing what she was doing at that instant for all the world. At the same time, she knew she was doomed, for Eustace's kiss was more splendid than anything she had experienced in her entire life.

When at last he pulled away from her, Mary could feel the tears beginning to stream down her cheeks, and she wrenched herself out of Eustace's arms, once more feeling frustration boil up inside of her.

"Ambassador Chapuys," she muttered angrily, "You will be my ruin."

She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and marched across the room, gesturing toward the door for him to leave.

"I am very sorry that our meetings must end this way," Eustace said quietly to Mary as he approached the door, "With your lovely face in tears. The very last thing on Earth I ever wish to make you do is cry, my Princess."

"And what do you wish to make me do?" Mary narrowed her eyes and instantly wished she had not asked the question. Eustace stepped near her so that he was but inches away and lowered his face to plant a gentle kiss on Mary's forehead.

"I wish to make you say my Christian name, tenderly, with love in your voice. I wish to make you feel such pleasure as no woman has ever experienced. Most of all, I wish to make you smile, Mary."

But Mary could not smile, for the words he spoke only made it more difficult to realize the impossibility of it all. To what end was all of this nonsense? If there was no hope of marriage, then all of this was a silly game with no purpose, objective, or mission. It was sin.

"Tonight, I shall ask my father the King for permission to leave in the morning for Richmond Palace," Mary announced, her voice muddled with both sadness and resolve. "I do not know for how long I shall be gone; I suppose until he summons me back."

"I shall miss you very dearly all the while," Eustace promised, "for when you are gone from it, the court is an empty and unpleasant place. Know, my most beloved Princess, my Mary, that you are loved more sincerely than you know."

He brushed a stray hair from Mary's forehead, smiling very gently and gazing deeply into her eyes. Mary felt her heart stir with his words, and her mouth went dry. She could say nothing; she felt the corners of her lips twitch up, but no words came.

"You occupy my dreams and my waking thoughts. I have seen many things in my life, My Lady, but the sight of your lips moist after a kiss is by far the loveliest of all sights I have beheld. I have touched many things, but the feel of your soft cheek beneath my rough hand is by far the finest of all. I have been fond of many people; I have liked many things. Never, Mary… never… have I loved. Not in a way such as this. Know that. I shall see you upon your return. Safe travels, Princess."

He bowed, a low and respectful bow, and Mary felt herself dip into a socially gratuitous curtsy in response. Then, with a final breathless smile over his shoulder, Eustace opened the door, walked through it, and shut it behind him… and then he was gone.

The next day, Mary left for Richmond Palace. She would not return to court until summoned to meet the new queen – nearly six months later.

* * *

"Welcome back to court, Lady Mary."

Mary nodded and smiled meekly at the various noblemen and women passing her in the halls of Hampton Court Palace. She had been gone for so long that she had missed the entire reign of a queen. Of course, that queen had hardly been such – her father had thrown poor Anne of Cleves out like old dishwater in favor of his teenage paramour.

Catherine Howard – Mary despised her. She had greeted the young new queen with the bare minimum respect and deference in their first meeting… perhaps even less than the bare minimum.

Catherine was giddy and flippant and Mary found her to be downright silly. Mary was a far more serious creature, one whose habits and deeds circulated around glorifying the Lord and promoting the cause of the Church.

Mary had returned to court not only to meet the new queen but of her own volition, as well – she needed to see Eustace Chapuys.

She had tried desperately to rid herself of him. She had not corresponded with him aside from the very rare formal letter regarding political matters – never anything personal. She had continued in her campaign to get herself placed in an advantageous marriage contract, to no avail. Her twenty-fourth birthday had come and gone, and Mary could practically feel herself getting older by the day.

Now Mary strode cautiously down the corridor of the palace in London where courtiers bustled about busily, her eyes scanning anxiously through the crowds. Then she saw him, staring down at a letter in his hands as he absently walked down the hallway.

"Ambassador Chapuys."

Mary's voice was clear and strong, more so than she had perhaps been expecting it to be. She planted a calm smile upon her lips and folded her hands across her stomach. When Eustace Chapuys looked up, startled, from his letter, his pale eyes met hers and her smile unwillingly broke into a relieved grin.

He smiled, too, and Mary noticed that Eustace had cropped his hair a bit shorter in the months since she'd seen him. It had greyed a bit, too, and he looked even wearier than the last time she had seen him. That worried her a bit, but she tried to shake off the concerns and instead focus on her happiness at seeing him.

They approached one another, Mary's attendant Joan following close behind her. Mary had chosen a sapphire blue silk gown with simple embroidery for her arrival into court, and she secretly hoped that she looked in a manner that Eustace would find attractive. Her hair was up, off her shoulders if for no reason other than the unbearable heat, and she wore a geometric hood crafted from cream silk. Joan had assured Mary that morning that she looked splendid. From the expression of mild avarice in Eustace's eye, he seemed to agree.

He bowed low to her, and in return Mary curtsied politely, though his station did not call for it.

"My Lady Mary," he said kindly, "when last I saw you, you were bundled in warm clothes and standing before a fire to keep warm. Now, we are lost in an interminable summer. To me, the juxtaposition says that it has been far too long."

He bowed again and kissed Mary's hand gently. She smiled happily at him, unable to help her reaction. Much as she had warned herself to control her reaction upon seeing Eustace, she found herself quite unable to do so and absently worried that she visibly appeared quite as smitten as she felt.

"Indeed, Excellency," she agreed, keeping her voice as calm as she could, "it has been too long."

"Will you dine with the court tonight?" Eustace inquired hopefully, but Mary shook her head no, and he looked disappointed.

"I will not," Mary informed him. "Not until I have been more properly apprised of Her Majesty the Queen."

Mary struggled to keep the derision from her voice, for there were others passing in the hallway, and it would be treason to speak ill of the new queen. But Mary knew already that she hated the girl - and, truly, she was a girl and not a woman as she had only seventeen years to her name and seemed by all accounts to be perhaps the silliest creature on Earth. Certainly, Mary's own first impressions were ones she simply could not wait to recount to Eustace in private. She was sure that he shared her sentiments about the ridiculous new queen.

"So, you will be dining in your chambers?" Eustace pressed, and Mary nodded.

"If you should care to join me, Excellency, you are, as always, more than welcome," she told him warmly.

Eustace said softly, "I thank you, most gentle lady, and I do accept the offer."

"Eight o'clock tonight, then," Mary said, perhaps a bit too brightly, but Eustace simply nodded kindly and bowed. Mary followed him with her gaze as he continued on down the hallway, and then she saw the look in Joan's eye as she, too, watched him leave.

The expression on Joan's countenance was unmistakable. She was clearly smitten. Suddenly overcome with rage, Mary stormed down the corridor in the opposite direction from Eustace, fleeing to the safety of her chambers.

When she flung open the door to her bedchamber, the Mary was instantly and unpleasantly transported back to the journey from Richmond, when Joan had brought her horse up beside Mary's and said,

"My Lady, I am so looking forward to seeing Ambassador Chapuys."

Mary had looked at Joan curiously, for Joan rarely spent time with Eustace, and she had said in reply,

"Are you? Why is that?"

"Well," Joan had whispered excitedly, "my father hopes that soon I might marry him, you see! My mother's family is from Savoy, as you know, and Ambassador Chapuys is, I think, the most handsome and dignified man at court."

Mary had felt her stomach churn and her heart sink. Of course, Joan would be a perfect match for Eustace. Joan was the daughter of a minor English lord, and a marriage between her and the Imperial Ambassador would be the perfect move for both her family and for Eustace. Mary, on the other hand, could never marry Eustace, so what was the point in pining over him or wallowing in envy?

She had gulped, hard, and said through her teeth,

"I wish you nothing but the best, Joan."

Now, though... now that Mary had seen the look in Joan's eye as Eustace walked by the two of them in the corridor, she was absolutely overcome with ugly jealousy. She fumed, pacing around the room and breathing heavily through her nose.

"My lady!" Joan exclaimed, followed closely by Mary's other ladies. "Are you quite all right?"

"Joan," Mary began, whirling around her shoulder and steeling herself, "I would recommend that, as a lady, you attempt to shroud your infatuations more carefully. You looked quite like a regular harlot out there, gazing after His Excellency so girlishly."

Joan looked confused, shaking her head and shrugging. Then, remembering that she was being chastised by her mistress, she nodded and bowed her head in shame. Mary felt an abrupt pang of guilt but brushed it off; her envy was rearing its head with such might that all other emotions were trampled quite effectively.

"Of course, My Lady," Joan said quietly. "I am sorry to have embarrassed you."

Later, as the sun was setting, Joan and Mary embroidered at a table illuminated by candles. It was far too hot to light a fire. Indeed, Mary sweltered, feeling almost faint from the heat and humidity. Her skin glistened with sweat, and she felt quite unglamorous and in desperate need of a bath. As she considered how wretched she looked, there was a gentle knock on the door. As a matter of propriety, Mary allowed Joan to rise and answer it, though of course she knew it was Eustace and the last thing she wished for was an interaction between the two of them.

"Your Excellency!" Joan's voice was a bit too shrill, a bit too excited, when she opened the door, and Mary saw her curtsy just a bit too deeply. She frowned from the table.

"Mistress Joan." Eustace's voice sounded, if anything, amused. Joan was a youthful, flighty woman of twenty - too young, Mary thought, for a man as dignified as Eustace. He seemed to agree, if his reaction to her enthusiasm was any indication. His next words gave Mary more hope than she had had in quite some time. "I should like it if my Lady Mary and I could talk for a while alone."

He limped into the room, cane in hand, and smiled gently at Mary. Her heart melted like wax beneath a flame when she saw him. She was helpless. His eyes glinted in the twilight and his graying hair looked silvery. He bowed, placing a hand upon his chest, and said,

"My beloved Lady, you are resplendent as always."

Behind him, Joan looked crushed. Eustace Chapuys had, just now, given her a shoulder so cold it could chill all of England in this wretchedly hot summer. She frowned deeply and stepped wordlessly from the room without so much as a curtsy, and Mary tried to keep herself from feeling any semblance of cruel satisfaction at the way Eustace had ignored the girl's cloying attentions.

He walked over to the table where Mary sat and took her hand in both of his, bringing it to his lips and kissing it softly. Mary felt her cheeks flush hot and red, and it was not as a result of the stifling heat in the room.

"Please, sit." Mary gestured for Eustace to join her at the little table. He was early; it was only seven-thirty and the food would not be arriving for another half hour or perhaps forty-five minutes. Good, Mary thought gleefully. It would give them more time to talk together.

Eustace looked over the table at Mary, his eyes glinting again in the candlelight, and said,

"I am very, very happy to see you again, Princess."

Mary turned up one half of her mouth and drummed her fingers atop the wooden table. She did not answer his compliment, but rather said ruefully,

"She wants you badly, you know. Joan. She wants to take you for a husband."

"Yes; her father has discussed the matter with me," Eustace said delicately, rubbing his cheek distractedly and scrunching his brow as if troubled.

"And what did you say to her father?" Mary pressed, feeling anxiety clutch at her gut.

Eustace smiled grimly. "I told him that while his daughter is lovely and will make a fine wife for someone, that I am quite in love with a woman already."

"Oh..." Mary thought - hoped, prayed - that he was talking about her, but of course she did not want to assume. So she said nothing else and sat in silence until Eustace continued,

"I have not put a finger or a thought, much less consideration of marriage, toward another woman at all since you left court, Mary."

Mary felt a swell of tears well up in her eyes suddenly, unwanted and not willingly summoned. Desperately, she hissed,

"But we can never, ever be wed, Eustace, and so there is no fruit to our... mutual admiration. You must find a woman suitable for you to marry and I must find a suitable man, and we must part ways, I think."

Eustace shook his head determinedly, folding his hands on the table. That only broke Mary's heart more, that he was so steadfast in his love for her.

"With all due respect, My Lady, I refuse to have you vanish from my life again. Six months gone after sharing a few kisses was pure misery. It was misery I do not think I can endure again. All I ask is that you love me in return until you are ripped from me into another man's arms. As for me, I shall never marry, for you have my heart until the day I join our Lord in Heaven."

"Then may I ask what you suggest, Your Excellency?" Mary demanded, cocking her head. "Shall I take you as my lover?"

Eustace was silent at that, and Mary scoffed at his lack of reply, throwing up her hands. Could he be serious? Could he honestly expect her to dive into a life of sin by loving him - and acting upon that love with him - outside the confines of marriage? For a man to have a paramour was not so unexpected, if not the most holy of deeds. A woman, though, with a man as a lover... that was social suicide.

Only, Mary realized, if discovered. What, then? To be secret lovers? How, exactly? This was the most preposterous notion Mary had ever considered.

Why was she considering it, anyway?

"Mary?"

Eustace stared at her across the table, wide-eyed, as if he were very worried. Mary realized that she had been thinking in silence for quite some time. She bit her lip and said softly,

"Very well, Eustace." He looked a bit confused, so Mary clarified, "I will... have you as my lover. Of course, I shall maintain my maidenhood. I can hardly conceive your child or go to my eventual marriage without my virginity intact."

"Of course," Eustace nodded. He looked elated. He looked as though someone had just told him that he had been crowned the sovereign of his own kingdom. He had the countenance of conquest. "May I please kiss you, my most gracious lady?" he asked, grinning suddenly.

Mary smirked but nodded at him and rose. She stepped over to where he sat and stood before his chair. Eustace made a move to stand, but Mary gestured for him to stay seated. He looked mildly confused, but then Mary leaned the few inches down to meet his face with hers. She touched her lips against his, taking his scruffy cheeks in her hands.

The gentle kiss was hardly enough for Eustace, as clearly evidenced by his gasp and the way his knuckles went white as they clenched into fists on the table. Mary, seeing the anxiety in his hands, seized them and put them on the waist of her sapphire blue silk gown. Eustace parted his knees wider so that Mary could stand closer to him, and as he drew her near his hands tightened on her small waist.

Mary's own fingers snaked in a meandering fashion through the silky graying waves atop Eustace's head. She tipped his head up to hers and kissed him again, this time cracking her mouth a bit to slip her tongue between his parted lips. After linking his tongue with hers, Eustace gently licked Mary's bottom lip, sending shivers up her spine.

So, this is what Heaven will be like when I die, Mary thought distantly to herself. Eustace will be there, kissing me for all eternity.

She had her eyes shut against the bliss of his ministrations, and she suddenly felt Eustace's mouth migrate to the soft, supple skin of her neck. There, he began to lap gently at her flesh, his tongue pressing against the length of her neck, his teeth nipping and his lips suckling mildly.

That elicited a sudden and rather loud moan from Mary, one in which his name was ripped from the back of her throat.

"My Lady," Eustace uttered in reply, his hands beginning to creep up her torso. "My beautiful, beloved Lady..."

As his hands moved upward, his mouth moved downward, until everything met on Mary's décolletage. His lips planted soft but urgent kisses along the neckline of her dress. The smooth, firm flesh of her lightly corseted breasts yielded beneath Eustace's mouth. His hands cupped her breasts through the fabric, with his thumbs tracing half-circles along the exposed part of her chest. That made Mary moan again, and she found herself completely unable to silence herself. Her fingers tightened in Eustace's hair, and she did absently worry that she might be pulling too hard.

He growled as he kissed her soft skin, sounding animalistic in a way that Mary had never heard him approach. He had always been dignified; he had always been modest. Now, in this moment, Ambassador Eustace Chapuys seemed to have forfeited all of his gentility and had devolved into his basest parts - the parts that truly made him a man.

Mary wondered to herself if he bore the physical signs of arousal about which she had been told. She had never seen nor felt a man's erection. She had been informed by her governess when she was younger that a men's member would grow hard upon being pleased by a woman. Then, in the act of love, he would place the member inside the woman and move it in and out of her until he spilled his seed. If a woman was not careful in touching a man, he might spill his seed that way, too. That was all Mary knew of men and their arousal. As for herself, she had only touched herself a few times in her years - only the few times when, after kissing Duke Philip and then Eustace, she had felt heat and insistence in her loins that only touching seemed to alleviate.

So, now, curious to see if their kisses had made Eustace excited, Mary reached down between them and very cautiously extended her fingers toward his lap. She inched them closer and closer, her eyes meeting Eustace's, searching for permission. In response, he seized her hand and drew it squarely onto his crotch, smashing her fingers against the hardness there. She saw a fire in his eyes that told her yes, he was indeed aroused, and feeling his erection only confirmed that. The fabric of his woolen breeches was thick, but Eustace wore no codpiece. Therefore, Mary could clearly feel the outline of his cock through the material, and that, too, made her shiver.

She tore her hand from his lap as if it had burned her, half-horrified at what she had just done. Eustace reassuringly laced her fingers through his and pushed the chair in which he sat back, its legs screeching against the floor. He stood and took Mary's other hand so that he held them both. He now towered above her, and she stared up at him, wanting more than anything to feel his hardness again. Her eyes fluttered shut as he leaned down to envelop her mouth in a fiery kiss, crushing her lips with his and plunging his tongue between them.

Mary groaned into his mouth, and he growled again. Eustace took Mary by the waist and began guiding her over to the wall. Mary was briefly terrified that he would take her here, with her back against the wall where she could not resist him, but then she remembered that this was Eustace Chapuys and that he would never do such a thing. Indeed, when he pushed her gently against the wall, he urged her to stand on her tiptoes, and he leaned down so that their nether regions were aligned, albeit with layers upon layers of fabric between them.

Mary could hardly feel his erection through his breeches, her skirt, and her petticoats. Desperate to sense his hardness against her aching entrance, she began hiking up her skirts. Like all ladies at court, Mary wore nothing beneath her skirts except hose to her knees held up by garters. That left her entrance free and open, and she was so moist and ready that if they had both been naked, she did not suspect she would have been able to help herself from engaging with Eustace right then and there.

He stared at her, wide-eyed, as she raised her skirts, and then gulped audibly upon the sight of her revealed Venus mound. Perhaps without even realizing it, Eustace reached a trembling hand out to her and touched the pads of his middle and ring fingers to the pearly wetness between her thighs. At the instant his fingers made contact, both of them cried out - Mary in a squeal of pleasure and Eustace in a low moan of desire.

"I want... Oh...! Eustace, I want..." Mary could not articulate herself, and she gasped and swallowed between words as he fiddled with her clitoris.

"What do you want, My Lady?" Eustace growled into Mary's ear, beginning to kiss her neck again. It was too much. Mary slumped against the wall desperately and clenched at her skirts.

"I wish to see... I wish to feel your... manhood." Mary felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment, but Eustace pulled his face away to look into her eyes and smiled kindly.

"I know that My Princess wishes to keep herself a maid," he reminded her, and Mary nodded in frustration, "But... there are other ways of feeling pleasure. Many, many other ways."

"What other ways?" Mary demanded, her voice breathy as she climbed the mountain of bliss that she knew would lead to the pinnacle if he kept touching her the way he was.

He was gliding the pads of his fingers against her slick entrance, occasionally plunging them inside of her and hooking them against her most sensitive spot. His thumb repeatedly stroked her clitoris, and a constant moan was now streaming forth from Mary's lips as she repeated Eustace's name over and again.

She was seeing spots now, and the room was spinning, and she was so close when...

There was a loud, insistent knock upon the door, and Mary panicked. She was ripped from her moment of pleasure and threw her skirts down, fixing her mussed hair frantically.

Eustace tore his hands from Mary and stepped back, looking unsteady upon his feet. His erection was visible even through his loose breeches, so he anxiously crossed his hands in front of his lap as he stood beside Mary. She glanced over to him and saw that his fingers were still glistening with her fluids, and she shuddered.

"Yes?" Mary called, her voice shaking a bit and sounding forced. The door opened and Joan entered, carrying a large tray of food with two trenches and several goblets.

Her face was tear-stained. She was sniffling, and in that instant Mary realized that Joan had been standing at the door listening to them.

* * *

Eustace stayed until ten-thirty, at which time he decided that lingering further would be patently indecent. He bid Mary farewell with a chaste kiss before stepping out the door, murmuring,

"Goodnight, my sweet princess. You can scarcely begin to understand my joy at your return. Now once more my heart is whole."

He touched his lips to her forehead and was gone, and Mary felt her knees go weak as she watched him go. How on Earth did he always know just what to say to make her crumble so effectively? His words were sweeter than honey. His kisses were more intoxicating than wine. Mary was hopelessly drowning in her infatuation.

Her bubble was rather unceremoniously burst as she prepared for bed, realizing that Joan had not said more than three words to her as she undressed her.

"Evening, My Lady," Joan had said cursorily upon entering the room, and had quickly begun unlacing Mary's sapphire gown. She slipped the bodice off, then the stomacher and the skirts. One by one petticoats were removed, then Mary's corset. Finally, Mary slipped a sheer nightgown over her head as her other lady, Margaret, pulled pins out of Mary's hair. Mary shook her hair loose into its long auburn waves and waited for Margaret to brush it. Joan stepped in front of Mary and curtsied, waiting to be given her leave.

"Why were you crying earlier, Joan?" Mary asked abruptly, feeling Margaret's comb pause on her hair for a split second. Joan's mouth opened and shut, making her look rather like a fish, and then she bit her lip. Mary knew, of course, why Joan had been crying, but she needed to hear Joan say it herself, and she knew that anything said in her chambers was sacred and secret between herself and her ladies.

"My Lady's voice was rather difficult to ignore through the door," Joan admitted, her voice trembling.

"And my... voice... brought you to tears?" Mary asked skeptically, raising her eyebrows. Joan nodded hesitantly, wringing her hands. She pulled anxiously at her chestnut locks and said,

"I know that His Excellency harbors no emotion toward me. That much was clearly evident today. It was clearly evident that he harbors emotion toward you, My Lady."

"Hold your tongue," Mary warned firmly, feeling suddenly panicked at the way Joan had phrased the notion.

"I meant no offense!" Joan threw up her hands and bowed her head. "What I meant was... His Excellency loves you very much, I think, and I find it very romantic indeed."

"You know perfectly well that I may never marry the Ambassador," Mary said quietly, with some measure of sorrow in her voice, "so there is no reason to encourage such silliness."

She went to bed a few minutes later, casting out her ladies to the adjoining room. She shut the heavy wooden doors leading to her bed chamber and closed the curtains around her bed even though it was really quite warm in the room. Blowing out the candle beside the bed, Mary climbed between the sheets and pushed the thick blanket down toward her feet.

She lay on her side and imagined that Eustace was beside her, sharing her bed. She could see him now - lost in slumber, his wide eyes shut, his graying hair a mess, his thin lips pressed together as he dreamed. Mary sighed into the darkness and closed her own eyes, thinking back to her encounter with him earlier. If that was what it meant to have him as a lover, that he would touch her that way and kiss her like that and declare his love for her... well, that would hardly be a problem.

Mary drifted off to sleep, praying with all her might that she would see Eustace when she woke.

She did not see him again for three days, for he had several meetings with ambassadors from other countries that occupied his time. When, after three days, Mary took it upon herself to go to his chambers, it was Eustace himself who answered the door and beckoned for her to come inside.

He glanced out into the hallway before closing the door behind her, checking to see that no one had seen her enter. When he had confirmed that, he turned to face her and said in a soft voice,

"My own beloved Mary..."

That made her heart melt all over again, and she smiled merrily at him. He swept her up in an embrace and squeezed her gently, ensnaring her in his strong arms and pulling her tightly against his hard chest.

"You have been busy these last several days," Mary muttered into the fabric of Eustace's doublet. He nodded but whispered,

"Alas, My Lady, I have been sorely distracted by the memory of our last meeting."

He smelled like wet leather, as if he had been riding, and the aroma delighted Mary. She inhaled more deeply and sighed blissfully. She flicked her eyes over to Eustace's bed and saw how the late afternoon sun cast its warm rays through his window onto the maroon threads of the coverlet. The bed seemed to be calling out to Mary, as if it were made of treacle and wanted to be eaten.

"Will you hold me?" Mary asked suddenly.

Eustace chuckled in a low voice. "What, pray tell, am I doing right this instant?"

"No... I mean... on the bed." Mary giggled at his words but pointed to her goal. She glanced up at Eustace to see that his smile had disappeared and that his eyes were dancing, wide and panicked, between the bed and Mary.

"My Lady," he whispered, "I fear that if I climb into bed with you I shall hardly be able to control myself."

"You are a strong-willed man, Eustace," Mary insisted. "Show me just how strong your will is."

She led him by his hand, practically dragging him, to the bedside. She kicked off her satin shoes and boldly climbed up atop the soft feather-stuffed mattress, rolling onto her back with her arms up about her head. She looked over to Eustace and grinned when she saw the alarmed look on his face. He looked... overwhelmed.

Indeed, when he spoke, it was to say, "My mistress is in my bed," as if more to himself than anyone else, and he rubbed his forehead anxiously. Mary grinned all the wider, hearing him call her his mistress, and she bit her lip hard against the emotion welling inside her chest.

Eustace cast his cane aside, leaning it against the table beside the bed, and stared resolutely at Mary. He began unclasping the hooks of his doublet, one at a time, and Mary's eyes went wide. Eustace paused.

"It is difficult to lie down in this, Princess, but if you wish, I shall stop," he said gently. Mary realized that her eyes must have looked more frightened than she'd intended, and she insisted,

"No... Eustace, please. Continue."

He took off the doublet then, and Mary could see that the linen chemise he wore beneath it was rather soaked with sweat. She was hardly surprised, for it was swelteringly hot, but she said to him nonetheless,

"Perhaps you would be more comfortable without your shirt, as well."

He grinned wickedly and replied, "Perhaps, in this heat, I would be more comfortable in nothing at all."

Mary propped herself up on her elbows and glared at him. She had meant to be polite; Eustace had now crossed into the realm of the uncouth. Seeing her angry eyes, he erased his smile and chastised himself.

"My Lady, you have my most sincere apologies. That was a horrid thing of me to say."

Mary sighed. What did she want him to say? One moment she wanted him with his hand up her skirts and another moment she wanted him to speak chastely to her. How could he possibly expect to know which Mary she was in that instant?

"No... I am sorry, Eustace. I have been confusing, I'm sure," she said, and he looked rather relieved. "By all means, kick off your shoes and peel off that shirt and please come lie down with me."

He did just that, sinking shirtless onto the mattress beside Mary. Then it was just like the dreams Mary had been having the past few nights, where she would imagine Eustace beside her in bed, wearing hardly anything at all, only now he was gazing at her with such love in his eyes as she had never seen a man use toward a woman.

He reached out and twirled a tendril of Mary's hair around his thick finger, seeming to relish its silkiness as he moved himself closer to her on the mattress. They were facing one another now, Mary still shrouded in the burgundy silk dress in which she had arrived. Eustace wore nothing but hose and breeches, so as he edged closer to her, Mary realized that her fingers were reaching out to entangle themselves in the graying curls at his chest.

"Do you know how much it has pained me," Eustace began, "to be the primary negotiator of marriage contracts for you over the past ten years?"

"Is that why they have all failed?" Mary jested, planting her hand squarely on his heart. Eustace frowned and shook his head.

"Every time that I had to meet with your father the King about sending you away to some foreign prince, my heart ached as if someone had cleaved it open. Honestly, Mary, I could not stand the thought..."

She silenced him then with a kiss, for his words were disturbing her. She hoped that he would interpret her kiss as being an expression of mutual love.

"Eustace," she murmured after breaking away from his mouth, "you mentioned that there were many ways to feel pleasure with you... Many ways that would allow me to remain intact."

"So there are, My Lady," Eustace smiled, petting Mary's head.

"I should like for you to show me," Mary requested, feeling her cheeks grow hot. It was not often that she felt the age gap between herself and Eustace evident, but in this moment it was painfully so. He was old enough that he must have some semblance of experience with women, while Mary hardly knew how men physically experienced pleasure in the first place.

"Well..." Eustace cleared his throat. "I can touch you the way I was doing the other day when we were so rudely interrupted by the Lady Joan. I can also use my mouth..."

"Down there?" Mary blurted, for she felt rather scandalized by the concept. Eustace licked his lips and looked amused, and that made Mary even more embarrassed. Eustace nodded gently, and Mary simply said, "Oh. I see."

"And, in theory, a woman may do similarly to a man," Eustace told her. "She may wrap her lips about his member and plunge it into her mouth, caressing it with her tongue. It brings a man great pleasure and can not result in conception."

"Would I not choke?" Mary asked fearfully, and Eustace looked as though he were trying not to laugh.

"No, Princess," Eustace promised, "for I would be very careful and gentle."

Mary stared at him for a solid moment while she considered it, and then whispered, "I should like to try."

Eustace pulled Mary close against him, her face becoming buried in his chest, and he murmured to her, "My sweet Lady, how innocent you are. How virginal and innocent, and I shall ruin you, for I am a dastardly cur."

"You are no such thing, Eustace," Mary insisted. There was indignation in her voice, which was muffled by his skin. "You are my lover, in every sense of the word."

She was drawn into a deep kiss then, one in which his tongue danced with hers in an elegant pavane. His hands removed the black veil she wore and placed it, with its pins, on the table behind him. Then he caressed her soft hair, his fingers tracing lines along her scalp that created a pleasant tingling sensation spreading from Mary's head straight to other, more secret, parts of her body.

She felt heat between her legs as he kissed her, heat and persistent throbbing, and she felt herself beginning to hike up her skirts again, longing desperately for the touching that Eustace had been performing days previously upon Joan's arrival.

Eustace obliged as he continued kissing her, ghosting his fingertips up the soft flesh of her thighs at a dramatically slow pace. Mary moaned quietly into his mouth, willing his hand to arrive at the wetness between her legs more quickly. When at last his fingers touched upon her aching clitoris, she gasped and panted frantically.

"Shhh..." Eustace hushed soothingly, using his free hand to prop himself up into his elbow. "Dearest Mary..."

She rolled onto her back and spread her legs a bit to grant him better access, letting her skirts rumple around her waist. Eustace began to rub two of his fingers is languorous circles around Mary's orifice, coursing over the lips of her entrance, her throbbing clitoris, and the very wet opening there.

"Oh... just, please, please, please..." Mary's head thrashed back and forth upon Eustace's pillow and she clutched anxiously at the sheets. This was torture, what he was doing now, and it was not fair, for she was so far beyond control of herself that she had no idea what was going on around her. There could have been a feast in the room and she would have been oblivious.

"Tell me what you would like, My Lady," Eustace said reverently, and Mary replied,

"Faster."

Eustace sped up his ministrations, moving his fingers more rapidly against Mary, his rhythm constant and steady. She felt herself climbing the same peak she'd been climbing a few days earlier, only this time she felt herself pass a point of no return, a point at which she did not think she would have been able to stop her climax for all the world, and she could feel it coming like an unstoppable tempest.

At the moment that her world seemed to explode, Mary yanked Eustace's face down to hers and crushed his mouth roughly into a kiss. She moaned loudly against him as the room spun and her ears rang. She felt herself spasming around his fingers, the clenching feeling like a delicious triumph. When Mary pulled her mouth away from Eustace's, he was moaning, too, sounding desperate and horribly aroused.

He drew his fingers out of her, very slowly and carefully, and wiped them on the sheets. Mary panted and tried to catch her breath as she recovered from her climax, staring at Eustace in wonder. How on Earth could one man's touch be so skilled as to bring her such pleasure? And, furthermore, if she could experience that from simple touching, how much better could the act of fornication possibly feel?

She thought determinedly to herself that she would not find out any time soon, and she smoothed her skirts back down over her trembling legs. Mary was quite glad she was not standing, as she had been three days earlier. She very much doubted she would be able to support herself right now.

She glanced over to Eustace to see that he was lying on his back atop the blankets, his forehead gleaming with sweat. His chest, too, glistened as it quickly rose and fell, and there was a wild look in his eyes as he stared intently at the beams on the ceiling. His hand absently drifted back and forth over the front of his breeches, where Mary could see a bulge pushing insistently against the fabric.

"I think Your Excellency requires... some attention?" Mary suggested in a quavering voice, quite unsure indeed as to whether or not that was an appropriate thing to say in this moment.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position and onto her knees, moving so that she was kneeling facing Eustace. He smiled gently, reassuringly, up at her and reached for her mussed hair to smooth it.

"I love you so very much," Eustace whispered suddenly, and in that instant Mary would have done absolutely anything to bring him to release, but he continued by saying, "Your beauty is more pleasing than than anything you might do to me, Princess. I would simply lie here and look upon you for hours."

Mary's heart swelled. She found it difficult to breathe, all of a sudden, and tried very hard not to swoon and faint. She reached down wordlessly and unlaced the leather tie at Eustace's waist, gently tugging his breeches down. Eustace did not take his eyes from Mary's face as she worked, but she stared down, watching as the lowering cloth slowly revealed more and more of him in his most private place.

From there, nestled in a thatch of dark, graying curls, emerged Eustace's erect member. Mary had never looked upon a man's penis except in anatomical illustrations, and so was surprised to see it appear so thick and firm. Since Eustace was lying down, his hardness sprang upright, perpendicular to his body. Once his breeches were beyond his knees, Mary let go of them, no longer concerned with them.

Eustace reached down and took Mary's hand in his, silently guiding her to his hardness. Once their hands wrapped around his shaft, Eustace hissed and dug his head backward into the pillow. He shut his eyes tightly, and Mary smiled a bit to herself, realizing that it was her own touch making her react this way. She had a sudden urge to make him react in as strong and animalistic a manner as she could manage.

For a moment, his hand guided hers, showing her what to do - running up and down the shaft and up around the tip. Then, slowly, his hand fell away and Mary continued alone, gaining confidence as Eustace's voice repeated her given name in a low moan. A bead of pearly moisture appeared at the tip of Eustace's cock, and Mary discovered that spreading it over his length made it easier to move her hand.

Mary remembered the way Eustace had instructed her to use her mouth: "She may wrap her lips about his member and plunge it into her mouth, caressing it with her tongue."

She looked at Eustace's face and saw that his eyes were still clenched shut, so she continued moving her hand against him as she lowered her head to his length nervously. She wondered if she would burn, damned, for what she was about to do. But, then, she thought to herself, No. I love him, and she parted her lips. She slipped his tip into her wet, warm mouth and swept her tongue over it cautiously.

Eustace's reaction was so violent that Mary was almost afraid. He gasped as if in pain and grasped her head in his hands, panting anxiously through clenched teeth. His eyes sprang open and he exclaimed,

"Agh! Mary!"

She pulled her face off of him and looked into his wild eyes, startled by his outburst. Eustace gathered himself, sighed deeply, and blinked once, then said as mildly as it seemed he could,

"My Lady, you need not -"

"I want to do it, Eustace," Mary interrupted him firmly, her hand still clutching his member.

"It is not fitting for a woman of your position - I was simply speaking in fantasies. I beseech My Lady to allow me to dress."

"Eustace," Mary said, and her voice was gentler than it had been, "I love you as you love me. You have shown me wondrous pleasure. Please, allow me to reciprocate."

Eustace hesitated, but then nodded with measurable reservation. He lay back down and sighed again. Mary smiled seductively at him and asked,

"Will you watch me do it?"

"I would not miss it for the world," he replied.

Her gaze was adoring as she moved her mouth back to him. His hands grasped the sheets beside him, crumpling them in his fingers as he struggled to maintain control. He breathed heavily through his nose as Mary began to trace her tongue flat up and down his length, encircling it around the tip when she reached it. She repeated this three times and then asked uncertainly,

"Like this?"

Eustace nodded frantically and said, "Just exactly like that, My Lady."

Mary then dipped her head so that his length entered her mouth. She struggled not to gag with the sensation of his tip touching the back of her throat, but to instead welcome him into the sopping warmth of her mouth.

"Agh! I fear..." Eustace struggled to speak as he bucked his hips and arched his back, "I fear I shall not last long, Mary."

"It is quite all right," Mary reassured him gently, for she was so inexperienced that she hardly knew what a long while was in these things, anyway. She continued plunging her mouth against him, mixing this movement with pumping of her hand and swirling of her tongue. After a few moments, Eustace grasped her head and pulled her firmly off of his cock.

Mary was confused as to why he'd done it, but then she saw him clutch himself and pump his hand a few times, frantically, and then his seed burst forth in several streams and landed on his stomach in small pools. As he came, Eustace moaned vociferously, thankfully not saying Mary's name so loudly. He shuddered and shut his eyes, sighing deeply and murmuring,

"Are you quite sure, My Lady, that you have never done that before? For, I confess, you are remarkably skilled."

Mary grinned self-consciously and simply replied, "No, Excellency. I had no practice. Allow me to fetch you a cloth, and we shall get you clean before we must away to dine."

* * *

As Mary sat beside her father at supper, she stole glances in two directions: occasionally toward the queen that she despised, and more frequently to the ambassador that she loved. She must have appeared distracted, for at one point her father, the king, said to her,

"Are you ill, Mary?"

"No, Your Majesty," Mary replied confidently. "Quite the opposite."

"King Francis has written again, suggesting a marriage between you and his son Charles de Valois, the Duke of Orléans these past five years. It seems he is the most handsome of all Francis' sons. Though he is young, only nineteen years of age, I should think it perhaps a fine match. Things are very tense between England and France at the moment. A marriage between you and the Duke of Orléans could serve to seal peace between our nations." King Henry wiped at his mouth with a napkin and looked to Mary for a response.

Ordinarily, news such as this would have brought Mary nothing but joy. For years, marriage had been the end game in life, the goal for which she was constantly striving. Now, though, there was Eustace, and as he had said, she was only his until she was torn away to be given to a man she could only hope to learn to love. This Charles de Valois... Mary had heard he was blind in one eye, and, though handsome, not very intelligent. He also was only nineteen, five years younger than Mary and far less mature than Eustace Chapuys. One thing was certain - Mary could do nothing without talking with Eustace, and, of course, she could hardly say no to the king. So, she turned and smiled gently at her father and said,

"I am at Your Majesty's command."

King Henry grinned and clapped his hands. "I wish to see a galliard!" he called. The musicians began striking up the five-step rhythm of the athletic dance. All the younger nobles in the room processed to the center of the hall to dance, and though Mary was not frequently a dancer, she joined them.

She stood across from her father's groom, a young man called Thomas Culpepper, and curtsied. He bowed. Behind Culpepper, Mary could see Eustace sitting, watching her, his hands folded on the table and a small smile on his face. Of course, with his gout and his age, this was hardly a dance for Eustace, Mary knew, but it still made her a bit sad to see him sitting alone while she danced.

Though Mary smiled back at him, her insides were roiled with negative emotion. Would she be married off to the French duke, and be forced to leave Eustace forever? Would she never see him again? Wasn't a marriage such as the one her father suggested precisely what Mary had wanted since before she'd even met Eustace?

Confused, Mary's smile turned into a bit of a grimace as she tried to focus on the complicated galliard. Right, left, right, left, cadence. Mary kicked her legs out in front of her, back and forth and back and forth, then leapt into the air in a half circle.

When the dance was done, Mary was thoroughly out of breath and walked back up to where she had been sitting. She took several large swigs of wine and glanced over to where Eustace was sitting.

He looked away, perhaps realizing that they had been staring far too much at one another, but Mary kept watching him as she caught her breath from the dance.

"Mary," King Henry said from beside her, and Mary looked up to him, startled.

"Your Majesty?"

"I see that you and Ambassador Chapuys smile at one another quite a lot," Henry said delicately, "and I hear that you often talk alone when you are here at court."

Mary felt her stomach sink, felt her heart race, her mind spin. She felt her mouth drop open with a distinct lack of response to her father's passive-aggressive accusation, and she saw from beyond her father how Queen Catherine Howard eyed her with a suspicious sort of glee.

"I…" Mary began, but her mouth went so dry that she could scarcely speak. "His Excellency has been a friend of mine for many years," she said finally.

"And that is all?" Henry pressed. "Friends?"

Mary was suddenly terrified. If she were ever discovered to be lying to her father, she could – would, probably – be killed, or at least thrown in the Tower. On the other hand, if she admitted that she even had feelings for Eustace Chapuys, he would undoubtedly be sent away from court and Mary would certainly never see him again.

"I trust you know I guard my chastity most closely, Your Majesty," Mary said modestly, deciding that it was the only answer she could give. It was true; Eustace had not taken her maidenhead. However, it was not the whole truth. Her cheeks flushed, in reality from her fear, but Henry seemed to read it as embarrassment.

He laughed.

"Of course," he said in a booming voice. "My Mary! My spotless, wholesome Mary."

Now Mary's cheeks did flush from embarrassment, for that was hardly an accurate evaluation of her character after the day's earlier activities. She looked again to Eustace, and now he was looking back, with concern in his eyes, for Mary undoubtedly appeared quite troubled. He made a miniscule writing motion with his right hand, and Mary nodded. He wanted her to write him a letter explaining what had happened. She would, of course, though it would bring her great sorrow and shame to tell him of both conversations with her father.

Later that night, Mary cried herself to sleep, inexplicably traumatized by the entire day. She'd sullied herself with Eustace, then been told she would be marrying a French duke, then been nearly found out in her escapades. It was too much. As Mary drifted off into an uneasy slumber, she thought back to a conversation she had had with Eustace a little over a year earlier, when there had been talk of a marriage between Mary and yet another duke. That marriage contract had fizzled quickly, but in the days when the negotiations were taking place, Mary had talked often with Eustace.

She and Eustace had been walking together, as they often did, and they had stopped to rest on a bench. Eustace had turned to Mary and boldly brushed her hair out of her eyes.

"My Lady, what a fine woman you have become," he had said.

Mary had smiled, self-conscious, and replied, "I should think I would be quite a calamitous failure without your counsel and friendship, Your Excellency."

Eustace had shaken his head and insisted, "No. I have merely watched a blossom flourish into a lovely flower. I…"

His cheeks had reddened and he had bitten his lip, hard. Mary had placed her hand on his shoulder, concerned, and asked,

"What is wrong, Excellency?"

And then Eustace had smiled very sadly indeed and his eyes had glistened a bit, and he replied, "Nothing at all, My Lady. Nothing at all."

Mary should have known it then. She should have seen that he loved her. She had not, of course, recognized his feelings, and had instead continued the conversation blathering on about the damned dukes of Europe.

How awful she felt about all that now. How regretful she was to have wasted all those years that she could have spent with him, and how horrified she was that the time they had together seemed to be slipping away like sand between her fingers.

In the middle of the night, Mary woke with a start. She had been dreaming of him – of Eustace. She dreamed that she went to France and that Eustace died in England while she was gone. She had received a letter informing her of his demise, and she had been disconsolate at the idea that she'd not been able to say goodbye.

When Mary woke, her face was covered in tears. She found herself heaving with sobs, and she pulled herself out of bed and padded anxiously over to the main door of her chambers. Her maids were all still sleeping. Mary opened the door as quietly as she could, but it still creaked slightly.

She glanced out into the hallway to see if anyone was about. It appeared quiet and empty. She could see Eustace's door from here – it was just down the corridor. Mary figured she could move surreptitiously through the shadows and get there without being noticed, but she would have to be careful.

She shut her door behind her and tiptoed very cautiously through the obscurities, keeping her back to the wall and maintaining an eye out for the night watchman. When she reached Eustace's door, she reached for the handle and prayed that it was unlocked.

It was.

Mary pulled the door ajar and slipped inside, shutting the door behind her. She could see Eustace in his bed, a slowly breathing heap beneath the blankets. Anxious to climb into bed with him and reassure herself that he was alive still loved her, Mary continued to slink silently toward the bed.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she realized that someone else was already in the bed with Eustace.

* * *

Mary had no idea what to do. If she made her presence known, it would be humiliating for everyone involved. Yet, she was so distraught and irate that she wanted nothing more than to beat upon Eustace and discover the identity of the whore beside him. Of course, she had her suspicions, and had not checked to see that all of her maids were in bed before leaving her chambers, but… would Joan truly do such a thing?

Mary found herself sobbing silently, rooted to the ground, tears streaming down her cheeks. She stared at Eustace and the large lump beside him, longing to scream.

Of course, that would damn them all, including her.

"Mary?"

Eustace's whisper came through the darkness like a knife, and Mary simply stood where she was, suddenly very self-conscious to be seen by him in only her nightgown.

Eustace sat up slowly, smiling gently at Mary. She was very confused. Why was he being so bold when there was a woman beside him? Mary could see that the sheets were bunched, that the blanket was formed into a large lump next to where Eustace had been lying. She could see sleeves of a nightgown.

But when he sat up, she realized that he was not wearing anything, that he was sleeping naked, and that the lump beside him was comprised of his discarded nightshirt and robe.

"Why are you crying, sweet lady?"

Eustace did not ask Mary why she had appeared in the middle of the night in his room. He did not ask her why she had shown up indecently clad in only a nightgown and burst in on his nudity without knocking. No. He asked her why she was crying.

"I… thought there was someone in bed beside you," Mary admitted, humiliated. Her voice was barely a whisper in the stillness of the room as she continued, "The darkness and the hour played a trick on my eyes and my mind."

Eustace looked rather puzzled. "Who would be here, Mary?" he asked. He sounded somewhat offended. Rightfully so, Mary thought to herself, for this was the man who just the day before had told her how beautiful she was and how much he loved her.

"No one, I suppose," Mary conceded softly.

Eustace looked to the lump beside him that Mary had mistaken for a woman and held up the sleeve of his nightshirt. He smiled forlornly at Mary and said, "It was too warm for me to wear this, so I cast it aside."

She swiped tears out of her eyes and declared, "I came because I had a horrible dream, Excellency, that you were gone from me forever. I fear that dream may yet come to fruition if I am married to the Duke of Orléans."

She coursed her fingers over her long, thick braid and sighed anxiously, her breath still shaking from her tears. Eustace looked at her with distress and benevolence mixed in his eyes. Mary could hardly see him, but she could see that much.

"My own darling princess," he cooed, "It saddens me greatly to think that you have such dreams. For… I am here, right now, and I do love you, truly."

Mary nodded tearfully. Eustace slid back in the bed and patted the mattress in front of him so that Mary would lie down with him. She did, sliding between the sheets and turning onto her side so that she was facing Eustace.

Several thoughts raced through her mind immediately and simultaneously. First, she was abruptly concerned that this situation might lead to behaviors and actions that she might later regret. At the same time (and, in a way, confirming her suspicion), Mary felt the familiar warmth and tingling in her nether regions already beginning simply because she was in bed with Eustace. The fact that he was entirely nude only made the sensation stronger.

The way she was laying caused her breasts to push together and emerge a bit over the loose neckline of her nightgown, and she noticed Eustace staring at them through the thin material. Wantonly, Mary seized one of his hands and brought it to her chest, saying,

"Touch me, Eustace."

He did not need to be asked twice. He pulled on the string around the neck of her nightgown and untied it, causing the garment to fall off of her shoulder so that he could tug it down and expose her chest. Mary's breasts were small but round and firm, and Eustace seemed hungry at the sight of them.

He leaned forward and began gently kissing around her breasts. His lips were warm and soft and damp. Mary's breath hitched in her throat as his light little kisses were planted everywhere. As she rolled onto her back to allow him better access to both sides, her fingers enmeshed themselves in his wavy locks.

Then she felt his breath on her nipple, and the fingers of his hand coursing around her other breast, and he began to suckle very gently. He nibbled using only his lips, and then switched his attentions to the other side. Mary found herself writhing around in response to what he was doing, and her hand crept between her legs and felt the moisture burgeoning there as she became fiercely aroused.

"Eustace?" Mary guided his face off of her chest so that she could look into his eyes – eyes that were wild with stimulation but also carried a hint of concern.

"My Lady?" he replied.

"I do not want to surrender my virginity to the Duke of Orléans, or indeed any man for whom I harbor no love," Mary said, scarcely believing the words coming from her own mouth.

"I will not take it myself." Eustace shook his head no and moved to grab his nightshirt. Mary clutched his wrist and whispered frantically,

"I love you, Eustace."

"As I love you," he responded evenly, "but you are destined for much higher things – much higher people, Mary – than me."

"Very well," Mary said coolly, moving to rise from the bed and restore her nightgown to its proper place upon her shoulders. "I shall go to Hunsdon at once to await news about my troth to His Grace the Duke of Orléans."

"Please, Mary… do not be this way," Eustace pleaded, sitting upright and pulling his nightshirt over his head for modesty's sake. "I can not take you as my own, because… please, just think. What if you were to conceive my child?"

"Then I would marry you," Mary said in an impulsive hiss, "for there would be no other choice."

Eustace's gaze hardened. "And you and the child would be the subject of unending ridicule," he informed her. "It is certainly not the life I want for you, My Lady."

He said the final two words, her proper address, as though it pained him to do so, as if he were reminding them both of their positions.

"We can not go on this way," Mary told him, her voice cracking. "Secret meetings and trysts, encounters in the shadows… I love you far too much. I must away, for I think it would be easier not to see you at all than to see you in this manner."

"I very much doubt that to be true," Eustace maintained, shaking his head sadly, but Mary padded quickly from the room and hurried back to her own chambers without so much as another word to him.

When she woke in the morning, she asked for an audience with her father the king. He received her with a degree of impatience and said,

"Mary, I am sorry to say that, only this morning, political news has arrived from France that has made your marriage to the Duke quite impossible."

Mary did not know how to feel at that news. On one hand, she was distressed that for the foreseeable future, she would remain unwed. On the other hand, it left her theoretically free to continue at court, seeing Eustace whenever she wished. But after her conversation – argument – with him the night before, she thought she still ought to leave.

"I am sad to hear it, Your Majesty," she said, "but I more heartily regret the news of political discord. With Your Majesty's permission, I shall away to Hunsdon House to pass the remainder of the summer there in peace."

Henry chewed on the inside of his cheek. "You do not wish to remain here, with your 'friend,' Ambassador Chapuys?" he said seriously, and Mary felt abruptly terrified. She said nothing, only stared at him with wide eyes. Henry laughed uproariously and cried, "I jest, daughter! Of course you must go, so that I can not tease you here."

Mary smiled and curtsied, though she felt as though she were dying a bit on the inside, and she left to tell her ladies to ready her belongings. She did not suppose she would tell Eustace Chapuys when she was leaving. It would be far too difficult to say goodbye.

She received her first letter from him just a few hours after arriving at Hunsdon. It came by messenger on horseback, and Mary thought that Eustace must have written it very shortly after he realized she was gone, and then sent it in pursuit of her.

It was forty miles from Hampton Court Palace to Hunsdon House, and so took approximately sixteen hours with breaks to traverse. Even that relatively short journey was quite tiring, and Mary was hot and exhausted when she arrived at Hunsdon. She was settling into her apartments in the great E-shaped building when Margaret came bursting in and said joyfully,

"A letter for you, madam! From Ambassador Chapuys!"

Annoyed, Mary sighed and said, "I've no idea why you are so thrilled nor why you are so surprised. His Excellency is among the world's most prolific letter-writers. He probably has news from court, that's all."

"Or perhaps it is a love letter!" Margaret exclaimed.

"Silence, woman!" Mary said firmly, taking the letter from the girl in her trembling hand. Margaret curtsied in apology but maintained a half-hidden smile on her face. Mary waved her away, out of the room, and sat at the writing desk in front of the open window to read the letter.

 _Dearest Lady Mary,_

 _I was most distressed to hear that you had left court so suddenly, without a proper farewell. I hope that this letter properly serves as the adieu that we did not say to one another. I pray that you return to court soon – very soon indeed – and that in the meantime God blesses you with health and happiness._

 _I am ever your most faithful and loving servant._

 _\- Eustace Chapuys._

That was it. That was all it said. It was short, almost terse. It said nothing of his romantic love for her, though Mary thought that was probably in case the letter was intercepted. Being an ambassador, Eustace knew how to carefully conceal hidden messages within letters. Perhaps Mary needed to read between the lines of the letter.

She read it five times more, searching for new meaning. What she readily noticed was his stress on how soon he wished for her to return, and the fact that he had used the word 'loving.' The only submerged meaning she saw was more troubling – that the letter was a final farewell of some kind. Perhaps Eustace would not, in fact, be at court when she returned. Perhaps this letter was his last goodbye to her.

Mary could not stomach the notion, but, then, to turn right around from Hunsdon and come dashing back to court was hardly an option. Neither was summoning Eustace to Hunsdon House. He was at her father's command and therefore had to remain at court at all times. Furthermore, it would seem a bit odd, a bit suspicious, for an unmarried man to be invited to the residence of his amicable and close unmarried female ally.

No. She would simply have to go the many months without seeing him. She had made her metaphorical bed by coming to Hunsdon. Now she had to lie in it – without Eustace.

She was summoned back to be near him around Christmas time, to celebrate the New Year with her father, his young wife, and everyone else who made themselves so merry at court.

She saw him first at the New Year's feast, for that was the very night that she arrived. She was talking with a few of her ladies, when Margaret nodded and looked behind Mary. She turned around and saw Eustace limping toward her, and her heart broke into a thousand pieces. He looked like an old man, more so than he ever had. She spoke with him briefly, too briefly. Then she watched in horror as Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard danced about like idiots together. Mary stormed angrily from the room, and she noticed that despite his infirmity, Eustace stood and bowed to her just like everyone else when she left.

It was bitterly cold outside; snow had fallen a few days prior to New Year's and everyone at court was in a sour mood because of it. Its appeal had worn off and now everyone simply willed winter away. Everyone was very cold and rumors flew around court that certain couples were doing a spectacular job keeping warm together.

One day, not too long after New Year's, Mary was praying a rosary in her chambers, distracted. She was thinking of Eustace. She was thinking of how one year ago on this very day she had kissed him for the first time, that so much time had passed since then and yet so little of it had they spent together. That was Mary's own doing, she thought ruefully. She'd removed herself from him on purpose. She had deliberately taken herself away from court, away from his presence, because she could not bear to be near him. She could not control herself around him any more, and the lack of control would spell both of their ruin.

Now she could see that she had missed her chance to enjoy being with him while he was still healthy. He had aged so much in the past year, worn from gout and his work, that Mary scarcely recognized him. His beard bore more gray than brown. His eyes were drawn and tired. His skin was pale and his expression haggard. The very thought of him so ill and pained made Mary ache inside and out.

Just as she was praying the Apostle's Creed in Latin, she was interrupted by the arrival of the Queen.

Splendid, Mary thought sarcastically, putting away her rosary and Bible.

The Queen's visit did not go well. The two young women argued, and the quarrel ended with Catherine accusing Mary of jealousy and removing two of her ladies. Mary was so offended that the instant the Queen left, she began packing to leave court. She packed her clothes herself so that it would get done faster.

She was so preoccupied by her anger that she did not hear the knock on the door, and apparently none of her retainers did, either. She was rather shocked, therefore, to see Eustace Chapuys come limping into her chambers unannounced and unaccompanied, leaning heavily on his cane for support.

"Lady Mary!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing?"

Mary suppressed the mixed emotions she experienced at seeing him. She stood quickly from the trunk she was filling and erased the expression from her face.

"I'm going back to Hunsdon," she informed Eustace, turning quickly away.

"Have you asked His Majesty's permission?" Eustace pressed, and Mary did not respond, for, of course, she had not. "Why are you leaving?" Eustace demanded, and his voice sounded almost angry with her.

"Haven't you heard?" Mary exclaimed indignantly, as Margaret continued packing her trunk. Mary carefully placed her rosary inside her Bible. "She has removed two of my maids."

"The Queen," Eustace said, and it was more an acknowledgement than an inquiry.

"Apparently I don't treat her with sufficient respect," Mary scoffed, continuing to pack her trunk as if Eustace were not there at all.

"Madam, please," Eustace beseeched her, giving her a wry little expression. "I am sure if you found some small means to conciliate the Queen, then the maids would probably be allowed to remain…"

"No!" Mary cried, too loudly, childishly throwing down the garment she had been clumsily folding. "Why should I? I don't want to conciliate her!"

She turned angrily away from him and turned towards her segmented mirror, illuminated by a few candles. In it she could see her reflected face becoming mottled by tears. She saw Eustace wave away Margaret and step slowly up behind her.

"What did she say to you?" he asked, very gently.

"She said… that I am jealous of her, because she is married, and I am not." Mary struggled to breathe through her sobs. She sank onto a velveteen bench. "I may never be."

Eustace knew as well as Mary that she was not truly upset over the subject of marriage, but of being alone. He chewed his lip and looked down to where she sat.

"She ought not to have said such things," he told her sadly.

Mary continued to cry and said, "No, but they're true. They're true."

Eustace sat down beside her and slowly enveloped her in his arm, cradling her head between his face and his shoulder. Mary began to cry even harder, mostly because she could smell his earthy aroma again after such a very long time, could feel the hardness of his chest beneath his smooth, dark doublet. She reached a hand up to that chest and clutched a bit desperately at him, relishing the scratch of his beard against her forehead. It was all too much – the jealousy that she really did feel, the pining for Eustace she experienced, the sadness, the sensory throwback to warmer days. It all combined to make Mary sob more violently than she had done in years.

"My sweet lady," Eustace murmured, rubbing her shoulder soothingly. "My poor, sweet lady."

"The Queen is right. I am jealous of her, but not because I want to marry a king," Mary choked, heaving with her cries. "It is because I so badly want to marryyou, Eustace."

Eustace looked up anxiously, to see that all of Mary's maids were gone from the room. Seeing that they were, he began to slowly rock back and forth, continuing to calm Mary with his gently stroking hand.

"I wish with all of my heart that you could," he whispered.

"Then until you are gone forever from me, I shall not wed," Mary vowed, "and if I retain my maidenhood for another man, I shall sorely regret it, for I can not imagine anyone else putting his hands on me in the manner that you once did, Eustace."

"This conversation feels very familiar," Eustace started sadly, "and the last time we had it, it ended with you running away from me for six months. You already have trunks packed to leave me again. How can I convince you to stay here with me?"

Mary looked up at him with sorrowful eyes and begged him, "Make love to me."

But Eustace shook his head and licked his lips. "I shall ruin you forever if I do, My Lady," he said.

"I want to be ruined by you," Mary declared, realizing what a harlot she must sound like to him, for his eyes went wide and he stared at her with disbelief. Mary rose from the velvet bench and walked briskly to the chamber door, ensuring that it was locked. Wiping away remaining tears from her eyes, she walked to the windows and shut them, pulling the curtains closed. Soon the room was cloaked in privacy.

"Mary..." Eustace said with warning in his voice, and for the first time he sounded as though he were truly bossing Mary around when he ordered her, "Stop this. I know you are upset with Her Majesty, but you will regret what you ask of me. Mary, stop."

She had come up behind him and put her hands on his chest, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and started unbuttoning his doublet from the neck down. When she heard the severity of his words, the command in his voice, her fingers froze, but then she angrily stepped in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest. Her bitter words belied her humiliation at having her advances rejected.

"Precisely who do you think yourself to be, Ambassador Chapuys, that you may address me with such impunity? You may address me as 'My Lady,' or as 'Madam,' or as 'Lady Mary,' but never solely by my given name. You overstep your bounds, Excellency, by chastising me so harshly."

She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and tried hard not to start crying again, though her anger and hurt and embarrassment were strong enough to make her do so.

Eustace stood and did something Mary never expected him to do. He closed the gap between the two of them and snaked one arm behind Mary, pulling her tightly against him by the small of her back. His other hand clutched the back of her head, and as he leaned down he positively crushed her mouth with his in the most feverish kiss Mary had ever experienced. There was hardly any romance at all in it - it was all biting and sucking and licking, and their teeth knocked once or twice in Eustace's fervor. It was, quite simply, the roughest kiss Eustace seemed able to manage, and when he pulled away Mary's lips felt swollen and throbbed from his force.

"Do I overstep my bounds right now, madam?" Eustace demanded, fire in his eyes as he panted a bit. "You know that I love you most devotedly. Why must you mistreat me when I deny you things I could never possibly provide?"

"But you could provide, Eustace," Mary insisted, her voice whining slightly. "Make love to me. I beg it of you..."

"I can not!" Eustace cried, and he shook Mary a bit by the shoulders so that she started to cry once more. "Do you not understand what it will do to you? To me?"

"I do not care! I have thought of such consequences for a year now," Mary sobbed. "I want you more than ever."

At that, Eustace delved into another fierce kiss, and his fingers reached around Mary to begin unlacing the ties that ran up the back of her bodice. He loosened it and Mary helped him slip it off, their mouths parting for a brief moment so that she could shuck the garment.

"Please, My Lady," Eustace begged as she began to unfasten his doublet, peeling it back and letting it fall from his shoulders onto the floor, "Never forget whose idea this was."

"My name is Mary," she said breathlessly, and she saw the happy little smile on Eustace's face at her words. She worked next on his breeches as their lips met again, unlacing the ties at his waist and pulling the breeches down from the waist until they fell to the ground. Eustace's cock sprang forth, long and thick and throbbing, ready for her and aroused from their kissing.

Mary moaned when she saw him, thinking that he would soon be inside of her, and she moved to unhook her skirts and step out of them. They kicked off their shoes and slid off their hose, and Mary turned around so that Eustace could untie her stays. When her chemise came off, they stood facing one another, completely nude and surrounded by various and sundry articles of clothing scattered upon the floor.

Mary was suddenly very nervous, and thought that perhaps she ought not to surrender her virginity, after all. The thought of him thrusting into her abruptly made her rather frightened. Seeing the fear in her eyes, Eustace gestured for her to step toward him, and he pulled her close to him.

"I think," he murmured as he enveloped Mary in his naked embrace, "that it is a perhaps a bit intimidating to carry out the act in a bed, with a man suddenly moving atop you. Besides, I find it to be unfitting for a man of my status to... take you... in such a way."

"Then what do you suggest?" Mary asked cautiously. Eustace took her hand and led her to the velvet bench upon which they had been sitting earlier. He sat down upon it, and Mary absently found it amusing that he was doing so naked.

Eustace positioned Mary so that she was straddling him, one leg on either side of his hips, kneeling upon the bench facing him. She could feel his tip pushing against her sodden entrance, and her breath hitched in her throat.

"Lower yourself onto me, Mary," Eustace purred into her ear, forgetting or perhaps ignoring her earlier command regarding her name. "It will hurt a bit, I'm afraid. This way you can determine how quickly and how deeply everything moves."

"Very well," Mary said, trying her best to sound dignified. She was slick and ready for him, but when she began sliding down onto Eustace's cock, she felt the ripping, tearing sensation about which her governess had warned her. She cried out in pain, clutching the back of Eustace's head for support and burying her face in his neck.

"Shhh... My sweet lady," Eustace said gently, rubbing his hands along the bare expanse of Mary's back. "It will begin to feel right if you continue moving."

Mary was horribly embarrassed that Eustace had to teach her, that she was physically inexperienced and lacked knowledge about the process. Yet, there was something arousing in the fact that he was her tutor in love, as well. She could not place her finger on why his years made the heat between her thighs stronger, but they did.

She began to slowly move up and down on his shaft, thinking absently that there was probably some blood there, and that it would stain the bench. How to explain that away?

He had lied; it did not simply begin to feel right, it began to feel positively splendid as Mary moved. She did what felt natural, which was to gyrate her hips up and down and forward and backward and around in circles, moving irregularly until she found a steady rhythm. Eustace's hands moved from her back to her waist, gently guiding her slow, languorous movements. Mary snaked her arms around Eustace's neck and traced her fingers through his hair, which was becoming damp with sweat the more that Mary moved on him.

She, too, could feel herself becoming flushed and damp as the minutes passed, and after a while Eustace reached between them and fiddled his thumb against Mary's sensitive nub. That took Mary straight to the edge of bliss, and she fell off the cliff moments later, shuddering and clenching around his member. She wrenched her eyes shut and scrunched her brow, her mouth falling open and his name escaping her lips over and again as she came hard.

She could hear Eustace panting now, and his hands were moving her more insistently. Mary was tired, bordering on exhausted, now that she had reached her peak and had been moving atop his cock for many minutes, but she looked into Eustace's eyes and whispered very determinedly,

"I love you."

That seemed to do it for him, and he yanked Mary's waist down so that he was buried in her to the hilt, then held her there as his face contorted into a look that mimicked one of pain. Buried in that look was an expression of bliss, though, and he breathed,

"My sweet lady..."

Mary felt his seed fill her, hot and wet, and then could feel it leaking out of her again. She was suddenly terrified of a great many things: first, that she was no longer a virgin and had been, as Eustace had so kindly put it, "ruined." Second, that he had just inseminated her and that she might conceive his bastard.

And, finally, Mary was terrified that now that she had had Eustace - had truly had him - she would never, ever be able to let him go.


End file.
